Category Archives: CO2

High-placed utility executives have told me solar panels can’t get any cheaper.
Here’s why economies of scale will continue to drive solar prices down,
just like for Henry Ford’s Model T.
There’s no excuse for new pipelines or nukes.
Let the sun rise!

tl;dr: If current rates of improvement hold, solar will be
incredibly cheap by the time it’s a substantial fraction of the
world’s electricity supply.

Here’s how to convert everything from air conditioners to trucks
from fossil fuels to 100% renewable sun, wind, and water power by 2050,
generating more jobs than would be lost from dirty energy,
stopping tens of thousands of premature deaths from pollution,
saving about 4% of U.S. GDP, plus saving $3.3 trillion worldwide
climate change costs.

That’s 100% as in no coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, or biomass, just clean solar, wind, and water power: 90% by 2035, 80% by 2030, and 25% by 2025.
No new technology required: just existing solar, wind, and water
power production with batteries and hydrogen fuel cells for transportation,
plus huge efficiency savings both from using electricity directly and
through other well-known techniques.

Exxon showed more sense three decades ago than now,
when it’s
back at the same Malaysian oil and gas field it backed off from in 1981
because it would release massive amounts of carbon dioxide that would
accelerate climate change.
It’s time to end the era of fossil fuels and get on with changing
the world to cheaper, faster, and far cleaner sun, wind, and water power.

It’s great the three biggest climate change problem countries are finally
committing to emissions reductions and other substantial changes,
although not enough to, you know,
stop global warming from getting even worse.
Meanwhile, CO2 emissions did not increase from 2013 to 2014,
even though the global economy grew, and this was largely
because of renewable energy deployment in China.
That’s right: China is actually leading the way faster on climate change
than it is promising to do.
And the old fake excuse that we need fossil fuels for economic growth
is busted.
Oh, and Georgia is leading the U.S.!

Today, in directly harnessing the power of the Sun, we’re taking the
energy that God gave us, the most renewable energy that we will ever
see, and using it to replace our dwindling supplies of fossil fuels.

Caught on-camera:
ALEC’s off-duty sheriff’s deputies getting TV reporters thrown out of their own hotel
for “taking pictures in the hotel”, after ALEC’s marketing droid denied any
lobbying going on, nevermind the lobbyist and
legislator in a bar spelling out how it works:
ALEC gives “scholarships” to legislators who then meet in closed rooms
with corporate reps (including all the companies involved in the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline) who have equal votes
on draft bills for legislators to get passed as law in many states.
Bills promoting fracking, pipelines, LNG export, and against solar power,
renewable portfolio standards, not to mention for private prisons
and privatized education and against municipal broadband and country-of-origin labelling, plus many other
corporate give-aways subsidized by the taxpayers and the environment.
It’s time for the IRS to revoke ALEC’s 501(c)(3) status.
And for the Georgia legislature to apply the state’s sunshine laws to itself.

The IMF calls the revelation “shocking” and says the
figure is an “extremely robust” estimate of the true
cost of fossil fuels. The $5.3tn subsidy estimated for 2015 is
greater than the total health spending of all the world’s
governments.

The vast sum is largely due to polluters not paying the costs
imposed on governments by the burning of coal, oil and gas. These
include Continue reading →

China is the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, so small
decreases in its emissions seem like monumental feats when compared
to other countries. According to a new analysis, in the first four
months of 2015, China’s coal use fell almost 8 percent compared to
the same period last year — a reduction in emissions that’s
approximately equal to the total carbon dioxide emissions of the
U.K. over the same period.

The analysis, published by Greenpeace and Energydesk China, reviewed
data from a number of sources, including China’s industrial output,
and found that China had reduced its coal output by 6.1 percent in
the first four months of 2015. The research team calculated that the
drop in coal use translates into a nearly 5 percent drop in domestic
CO2 emissions.

Lauri Myllyvirta, an analyst who worked on the Greenpeace report,
told RTCC that the report shows that China’s industrial output and
thermal power generation are falling while renewable energy sources
like hydro, wind, and solar are growing fast.

S.A.V.E. applauds the decision by the President’s Special Committee
on Campus Sustainability to support fossil fuel divestment.
Leadership and stewardship are part and parcel to Valdosta State’s
role as an institution of higher education and we call on VSU to
honor these ethos by divesting from fossil fuels, ending its
profiteering from ecological harm, environmental destruction, and
human suffering.